


Who Weeps?

by ArtemisWalsh



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4417985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisWalsh/pseuds/ArtemisWalsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In my escape from Helgen, I was greatly assisted by a young Redguard woman. She, along with some of my most loyal supporters, cleared a path through the lower levels of the fortress. While the collapsing stone sealed off that path before I could reach it, the Redguard did a great service by slaying over a dozen Imperial dogs, allowing for the Stormcloaks to escape with few dead, mostly from the dragons attack.</p><p>However, as this Redguard woman and Ralof (who was by mine and her side from the carts, and who fought side by side with her) were near the end of the tunnels under Helgen, they came under attack by a bear. She was gravely wounded, and Ralof was only able to carry her to the mouth of the cave, where she was able to get a few glimpses of sunlight before dying. Ralof was forced to leave her body at the cave, and later when a detachment of Stormcloaks arrived to give her a proper burial, the body was missing. I can only pray that in her final moments, she knew that it was by her hand that Ulfric Stormcloak survived to fight another day. Maybe Redguards too can find Sovngarde. When I take Whiterun, I will name the central plaza after her.</p><p>Her name was Jayri."</p><p>-Ulfric Stormcloak, 4E 201</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Daybreak

Pain. I remember pain. Screaming. Was I screaming? Someone else was screaming. Someone else was roaring. The bear. Where was the bear? The bear is dead; I shoved a sword into it's head. But it's teeth, they sheathed themselves in my leg. I bled. Ralof helped me stumble out of the cave. I bled. I laid down and looked at the sun. I stopped bleeding. I stopped breathing. 

And then I breathed. I was at the spot. All around me, there was blood. My blood. I scrambled to my feet to get away from the...puddles...

Looking down, I saw no gash on my leg. No indication that a bear had ripped chunks out of it. But I remember it happening. And the trail of blood leading out of the cave was evidence enough. It was only then that I realized I hadn't been breathing. I opened my mouth, and took a breath, letting the air fill my chest. And I breathed out, all at my own control. But the next breath did not come at once. I tried again, and I breathed again. But again, my body would not breathe of its own accord. Feeling my neck, there was no pulse. Nor on my wrist. It was all so strange, and yet...there was an explanation. I didn't know why I was thinking so calmly about it, considering the implications. But perhaps that explained why I was so calm.

The dead have little to fear. And that's what I was. Dead. "Fuck" was all I had to say. I had to breath in just to say it, though."I'm fucking dead." If thinking it felt strange, saying it was ten times more so. Most people said that they were dead when death was imminent, almost as a way of accepting their fate. I said it because death had already passed me, and for some reason it was not my fate. I was a walking dead woman.

I breathed in, much deeper this time. Some habits had not left me, it seemed. In fact, I seemed to still be all together, in mind and body. Which meant I needed to figure out what to do next. What did someone like me do? I tried to think of what my future had looked like before. I was...what was I doing? I had entered Skyrim from Hammerfell to find a new life. I was captured, and sent to the execution block. Then I escaped, and died anyways. A man promised me he would remember me, but in a battle like that, who could be counted on to remember one woman?

I heard footsteps. Looking down at myself, I saw that I was wearing no armor, only a simple tunic that one might wear under such armor. I remembered Ralof removing the armor on me in his futile attempts to tend to me. The footsteps were getting closer. I wouldn't tell them that I was dead. I was a refuge from Helgen. It had just been destroyed by a dragon, after all. Unless they were also refugees, such a story might be believed. I breathed again, and walked down to the road. 

It was four guards, one of them on horseback. They were clad in yellow armor, and their shields had the motif of a horse head on them. "Hold!" The one on horseback cried out. "Who goes there?"

I raised my arms above my head and approached them. Without armor or weapons, my best bet was to ask for aid. I would be far better off in a settlement, or a military camp, or wherever they were going. "My name is Jayri!" I said. "I'm from Helgen."

"A Redguard from Helgen?" One of them scoffed. "Were you a citizen there, or a prisoner?"

"Shut up, Barold!" Another one of them said. "Let her talk." He turned to her. "Apologies for my companion's words, but he does ask a fair question. What were you doing in Helgen?" 

Crap. They were seeing through my words already. "I'm a mercenary. I was staying the night, before heading further north." 

Realization dawned on the man riding the horse. "Ah. A sellsword. But then where is your armor? Your weapons?"

"Destroyed. I was only just able to escape the inn before it collapsed around itself. I was forced to flee to the keep, and eventually found a cave system that led me here." The lie was coming a bit easier now, and for the most part that was what happened. So it was not so much a lie as a partial truth.

The man on the horse nodded as I said all this. "Very well." The others looked at him. "I'm certain that that's not the full story, but for now, you are clearly without proper clothing or shelter, and the winter is only a few weeks away. We are guardsmen from Whiterun, to the north. Jarl Balgruuf had sent us to investigate these rumors of Helgen's destruction. I am thankful to see that at least some made it out alive. We were heading back to report on what we saw. Are you willing to accompany us?"

"I don't see why not." I said quickly. This was even better than what I had hoped.

"Good. We should reach Riverwood by late afternoon. I expect that that is where we will stay the night. You all can chip in for our friend for food and bed, yes?" There was some nodding of heads, and quiet grumbling. With that, we set off.


	2. The Plains Unfold

Just as the guard captain had predicted, we arrived at a small logging town just before the sun began its fall. I saw men and women working at sawing wood, a blacksmith hard at work on a set of armor, and two young men arguing in front of a building titled Riverwood Trader. But in all, there couldn’t have been more than a dozen houses. Riverwood was small and quiet, almost as if it had been like this forever. The largest building turned out to be the inn. 

It was a regular logging town inn, according to one of the guards. I had little frame of reference, but I decided to take his word for it. A sharp, bird-like woman eyed us as we entered, and a brutish man at the counter welcomed us. As it turned out, the woman was the innkeep. The men pooled together money for my food and room. It came to 28 gold coins in all. We had just finished eating when one of the young men I had seen arguing earlier walked in, pulled out a flute, and began singing. Within moments, it was clear that he was utterly terrible.

With those songs shattered to pieces by that voice, we retired to our chambers. I decided not to disrobe, since I had nothing else on. This simple tunic would have to do, until I reached Whiterun and was able to buy some proper armor again. As I lay in bed, the sounds of the lumber mill eventually coming to a stop, I wondered what my...condition meant. Why was I dead? Why was I not dead? Had the process simply gone...wrong? Was I caught in between the worlds of the living and the dead? That didn't seem likely: I was of sound mind and body, but I was completely drained of blood, and needed neither breath nor food nor water. I wasn't a vampire; I had no craving for other's blood. Was I merely a hollow shell of a woman, whose soul had strayed back into it's body? All of these questions swam in my head, but eventually I willed myself to go to sleep. That was another thing. Sleep. Perhaps later, I would see if I still needed sleep, or even got tired. 

A few hours later, I awoke. There was sunlight slipping through multiple cracks in the walls of my room. I immediately sat up in bed, then stood up. My body did not feel tired, nor did I feel any of the usual drowsiness or lethargy that follows waking up. It was as if I had merely gone into a standstill for a few hours, and I merely forgot all about it. Dressing myself, and leaving my room, I saw that the guards were all fully suited, and most were finished with their meal. I decided to not eat, just to see how that would go. As it turned out, hunger never set in the entire rest of the way to Whiterun. As we made our way through the calm light between the trees and the rough flow of the river rapids, I could not help but wonder what it would be like to grow old here. All I could see was plenty, and little others to use it. Man could not make a dent in this place. This was not the sands of Hammerfell, where water was scarce and to waste was to die. 

When we left the forest, and looked out at the plains of Whiterun hold, I realized that I would likely be in Skyrim for the rest of my days. I also knew that this did not matter. Stretched out in front of me was a flatland, but made brown with wheat and grass. I kept my head turned to the west as we moved down the winding waterfall path, but I could not see the end of the plain. More than just grass, I saw farms. I saw guards patrolling the roads, all alone and with no cover should a weather event strike. I saw a meadhouse on the side of the road. There were all the signs of prosperity. Even in the walk from the stables to the city gates was well fortified, with a drawbridge and at least a dozen guards standing at duty. 

"Well" the guard captain said, right before we approached the gates. "this is where I leave you to it. You'll be safe in Whiterun, safer than most other places in Skyrim. If you need work, ask Hilda in the Bannered Mare. It's in the marketplace, straight down the street as you enter the gates."

"Thank you." I nodded. In honesty, I wasn't sure how much coin I needed. If sleep and food were not issues, then all I needed was armor and weapons. And drink. I could drink myself to death many times over. 


End file.
